BRAIN GAMES

JASON SILVA, HOST

As host of National Geographic Channel’s Emmy-nominated series, Brain Games, Jason Silva will guide you through the twists and turns of your grey matter. Through a series of man-on-the-streets and experiments, Silva will be joined by top experts in the fields of cognitive science, neuroscience and psychology, who will give you the “why” behind the “wow.”

“A Timothy Leary of the Viral Video Age” was how The Atlantic recently described television personality, filmmaker and philosopher Silva, who has also been described as “part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and part Neo from ‘The Matrix.’”

A part-time filmmaker, Jason’s series of “Shots of Awe” – noncommercial micro-documentaries exploring the co-evolution of human and technology – continue to inspire millions of viewers. His latest effort, “Existential Bummer,” recently went viral, with more than 2 million views to date.

From 2005 to 2011, Venezuela-born Silva was a presenter on Current TV, the Emmy-winning, independent cable network started by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, where he hosted, wrote and produced more than 100 hours of original content. He left the network to become, according to The Atlantic, “a part-time filmmaker and full-time walking, talking TEDTalk.”

A self-professed wonder junkie, Silva recently launched a series of noncommercial micro-documentaries exploring the co-evolution of human and technology that “play like movie trailers for ideas,” according to The Atlantic. Jason recently delivered the keynote address at SXSW Interactive.

The Imaginary Foundation wrote of Silva, “like some kind of Ontological DJ, he recompiles the source code of western philosophy by mixing and mashing it up into a form of recombinant creativity, which elevates understanding from the dry and prosaic, to a sensual cognitive romance.”

Others have described Silva as “a modern performance philosopher, a Digital DJ, a re-vitalizer and remixer of optimism, and above all, a curator: of ideas, of inspiration, and of awe… like a trumpet player or modern-day digital Mingus, he jams, riffs and rhapsodizes through a tumbling thicket of ideas with such a sharp and vital alacrity that it can take the breath away.”

An active and prolific speaker, Jason has spoken at TEDGlobal, Google Zeitgeist, and keynoted numerous events for Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, Oracle, the Sydney Opera house and much more. He has also created videos for GE, Samsung, Adobe and Autodesk, and was a featured speaker at The Economist Ideas Festival, The DLD Conference, The Singularity Summit, the PSFK Conference, Mexico’s Ciudad De Las Ideas and Seattle’s Interactive Conference, among others.

Silva resides in New York City. In 2011 he became a fellow at the Hybrid Reality Institute, examining the symbiosis between man and machine. Jason was also recently named a National Geographic Society fellow, providing expert consultation on National Geographic projects, education and outreach, and environmental and public policy.